2012 republican presidential nominee III: can romney get santorum out of his hair?

gingrich opened a window a crack in SC but he just doesn't have the support to knock romney off. he's also dragging his own totally obvious baggage uphill.

there's some grim humor in drudge and the rest of the pro-mitt conservative media flogging gingrich's "anti-reagan" business. afaik gingrich is one of the only 80s ultras who attacked reagan from the right on soviet relations to still be working in politics. but i'm not sure. disloyalty to ronaldus magnus = liberalism, these days. it wasn't always so! i wonder if newt has tried to gingerly explain as much to floridians, i've kind of tuned the whole shitshow out tbh

Dude, it's rightwing authoritarianism; submission and obedience to righteous Authority is paramount, and all other principles are a far distant second. Questioning your elders or the leader(as appointed by God, natch) is an abomination. Not completely kowtowing to whatever the established orthodoxy or totemic/iconic figures will get you cast out.

It's a simplistic, deliberately infantilized thought process beaten into the heads of RWA followers; never question Daddy, and all future Daddies must prove their hardcore bona fides to what we think Daddy was. Questioning is not allowed, even when you were far more extreme in an area that Daddy ran on.

You get the idea.

Again, John Dean's _Conservatives without Conscience_ goes into great detail explaining how all this works and Bob Altenmeyer's research on the subject.

this is amazing, you have to admit

i knewt it wouldn't last :-/

LOL

maybe newt should've run with this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_for_the_dead#Criticism_of_vicarious_baptism_of_Jewish_Nazi_Victims

(Romney's admitted to participating in post-mortem baptisms)

small piece of bizarreness for your entertainments: THE SWORD OF CHANG

marco rubio got a sword from jeb bush:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/01/30/the_sword_of_chang.html

After you became the first Cuban-American speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, in 2006, your mentor, Jeb Bush, presented you with a sword. What was that about?

Chang is a mythical conservative warrior. From time to time, if there’s a big issue going on, you’d see Jeb say, “I’m going to unleash Chang.” He gave me the sword of Chang.

From which mythology does this conservative warrior hail?

I think it’s a Jeb Bush creation.

the gainesville sun tried to explain it at the time:

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050918/COLUMNS/50917061/1096/editorials

''Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society.

''I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down.''

Bush then unsheathed a golden sword and gave it to Rubio as a gift.

''I'm going to bestow to you the sword of a great conservative warrior,'' he said, as the crowd roared.

The crowd, however, could be excused for not understanding Bush's enigmatic foray into the realm of Eastern mysticism.

We're here to help.

In a 1989 Washington Post article on the politics of tennis, former President George Bush was quoted as threatening to ''unleash Chang'' as a means of intimidating other players.

The saying was apparently quite popular with Gov. Bush's father, and referred to a legendary warrior named Chang who was called upon to settle political disputes in Chinese dynasties of yore.

... but this is probably wrong. Brad DeLong commented at the time, too. it was a dumb joke from his CIA squish father

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/10/unleash_chiang_.html

When George H. W. Bush in the 1970s and 1980s threatened to "unleash Chang" on his tennis opponents, he was referring to China's onetime strongman and thereafter Taiwan's dictator Chiang Kaishek, leader of the Nationalist Party, the man who had largely reunified China in the 1920s with his army's "Northern Expedition," lost the Chinese Civil War to Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party, and then taken refuge with his Guomindang party cadres on Taiwan. After the start of the Korean War, the American 7th Fleet protected Chiang (and Taiwan) from Mao's People's Liberation Army.

Republican wingnuts, however, pretended that the 7th Fleet actually protected Mao's Communists (who had, after all, won the Chinese Civil War) from Chiang's Nationalists (who had, after all, lost it) by keeping Chiang Kaishek leashed. They periodically called for the U.S. to "unleash Chiang Kaishek"--so that Chiang, you see, could invade and conquer the Chinese mainland.

When George H. W. Bush, playing tennis (and losing) in the 1970s and 1980s, would threaten to "unleash Chiang," he was mocking the right-wing nuts of his generation.

But George H. W. Bush's sons--even the smart one, Jeb--never got the joke. They, you see, didn't know enough about world history or even the history of the Republican Party to know who Chiang Kaishek was, or what "Unleash Chiang!" meant. Hence Jeb Bush's explanation that twentieth-century Chinese nationalist, socialist, general, and dictator Chiang Kaishek was a "mystical warrior... who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society."

"Chang" is also not too far from "Chango," the santeria goddess in the form of St. Barbara, who carries a sword.

Community better jump on this.

St. Barbara

HMMMMMMM

does Chango wear a string of pearls?

she has a halo that Ronnie Reagan lent her.

Some right-wing columnists coalescing around Romney:

Then there is the CW notion that Mitt Romney is so reviled he can’t pull the party together and will have to lurch to the right to get the approval of Romney haters. But guess what? The Romney haters on the right are more plentiful in the blogs than in the electorate. National polls have consistently shown that Romney’s disapproval and “wouldn’t support him in the general election” numbers are lower than those of other candidates.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/conventional-wisdoms-gaffes/2012/01/31/gIQASB9meQ_blog.html

and Hewitt's take:

Mitt Romney will beat Barack Obama because a majority of the country already knows that the president is an epic failure at his job, and a thin-skinned, self-absorbed ideologue to boot.

All the noise about Romney's wealth and the nonsense about his "effective tax rate" won't make a lick of difference to a voter afraid of losing his or her job or fearing for their children's future.

All the left's harrumphing about Bain just isn't going matter to a country desperate for competence and character, discipline and the values of hard work, thrift and sacrifice.

Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2012/01/why-gop-primaries-didnt-matter-1952-1980-and-2012/2148226

a thin-skinned, self-absorbed ideologue

took me a second to realize he was talking about Obama and not Romney.

From which mythology does this conservative warrior hail?

I think it’s a Jeb Bush creation.

*furious clapping*

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/skelman/images/Unleashing%20change%20cover%20-%20kelman_0001.jpg

Hewitt has been a Mitt groupie since 2007.

^^^^ should be the tagline of his column.

jennifer rubin likewise

http://whyromney.com/data/images/hewitt.jpg

If you click you get a screensave of Romney's cock.

Looks like Mr Kelman knows a good technique to take a nasty fall.

""""effective tax rate""""

Kelman book cover looks like updated Bioshock imagery

The Florida primary is almost over, guys! The anti-Gingrich ads will stop!

do you think newt will endorse romney eventually?

They all do, even Hillary.

I was going to say the same thing, but did Ted Kennedy officially endorse Carter in 1980? I know there was that famous moment at the convention where he basically ducked Carter onstage during the big Kumbaya finale. And Hillary waited about as long as humanly possible.

Actually, that's not quite true. It took her forever to throw in the towel, but as soon as she did, I think she might have endorsed simultaneously.

Gingrich is getting buried. On the bright side, I (Jonathan Karl) asked Newt Gingrich how much longer the battle for the Republican nomination will go on. He told me “six or eight months” and then added: “unless Romney drops out earlier.”

As folks like Pareene have stated for a year: Newt's run is essentially a book tour. Why would he ever want to stop now?

I think he has a shot at coming out of this the palin of 2012 - like, if he manages to be 'the tea party candidate who didn't win' then he'd be leaving the race in a position of influence.

Too jowly to be nu palin.

(xpost) Isn't that sort of how he came into the race, though, at least symbolically--as a party eminence with some stature and influence, no real chance of winning, whose candidacy was mostly based upon nostalgia for 1994? But whatever pretend stature and influence he came into the race with has basically unraveled publically--almost everyone who worked with him hates him. This seems like a last stand.

kathrynlopez ann romney trending on twitter, as she should be. good lady.10 minutes ago

why drop out with zings unzung

8.22 pm. Only one percent of the voters were African-American. 16 percent of Floridians are black. This is a party with almost no African-Americans in it.

YOU DON'T SAY

Sullivan's outrage at its most wildly displaced:

Let me just say right now: this speech is the most dishonest, manipulative, disgusting series of lies I've heard in a very long time. And its core premise: that the president hates this country, whereas Romney believes in it. As I said: disgusting. I'm with Newt on this.

Huh? It was a generic I-just-won-a-big-primary speech. Can't he see Romney winking?

"Newt"

I want a "I'm with Newt on this" T-shirt.

romney fathered trig palin iirc

Wildly misplaced...his outrage wasn't forced to flee its homeland.

Wow, was Gingrich's speech ever loopy. Between being inaugurated and all the parties later that night, he's going to duck out for a few hours and sign about 10 things immediately into law. He's going to be exhausted.

i'm sure one of u guys will take care of biz & President Rubio will be invading Havana on the 21st.

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/funny-pictures-im-a-pwofessional-gwump-i-take-my-job-vewy-sewious.jpg

100% returns from FL:

Romney --- 46.4%
Gingrich --- 31.9%
Santorum - 13.4%
Paul --------- 7.0%

(shuffles off stage wearing bunny slippers)

v curious how much of santorum's vote would go to newt if he dropped out.

Romney still less than #50 /talkingpoints